


I swear it's not too late

by ghostbusters



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbusters/pseuds/ghostbusters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Summer of Love wasn't a glorious revolution for everyone in San Francisco. Some soldiers either don't want to forget or don't know how. The golden haired boy at the bus stop is a traitor too and knows how to expand your mind and ease the pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I swear it's not too late

“A time to gain, a time to lose  
A time to rend, a time to sew  
A time for love, a time for hate...”

 

There are leaves kicking up in the wind as he stands on the train platform with a duffel bag full of old clothes, an unloaded pistol, and one good suit.

He is a man with no place to go. At least he has a vague destination in mind. There will be no one waiting for him when he arrives and that's fine. He needs a change and that is supposedly what the city ahead is all about. He sleeps through the arrival and has to be awoken and ushered off the train before he misses the city entirely. The weather outside that stuffy passenger car is warm. It is pleasant and so unlike the muggy tropics of battle.

Erwin Smith has never been and never will be the praying sort of man but that doesn't keep him from stopping in the first church he encounters when wandering from the train station. He silently tells a God he doesn't believe in that he's not sure he regrets everything that has happened. He lost a lot of men over in those fields. His sacrifice saved a few, though, but it cost him everything he'd built. The bad arm he's plagued with, that misfortune which sent him home, aches and he takes this as a sign that he needs to stand up from the church bench and move on. There has to be something in San Francisco to make him forget.

The hotel door is hanging off its hinges and it almost falls to the floor when he steps through the lobby. A girl is passed out on one of the old couches in the small room, her bare feet twitching every once in a while. Erwin books a room and when the man at the desk asks him for a check-out date he says that he doesn't know. He provides the deposit and dumps his bag off on the rickety bed. This is home until he can find somewhere else. Home is the wrong word to use, but sentiment never really appealed to him. It doesn't matter.

The girl from the lobby couch has since awoken and drifted outside in her long, flowing skirt. She twirls his direction as he steps into the warm California afternoon. His blank expression never changes even when she silently slides up to him to place a slightly wilted daisy into the pocket of his olive army issue shirt. She laughs and flops to the ground near a guitar case. Erwin walks on from the confusing display. Things have changed since he'd been among normal people. People who don't salute him. People who don't know him. People who are not depending on him. It is freeing, but he feels trapped in his own skin all the same.

Erwin wanders around the city for the better part of the afternoon, aimless and observant. He's never exactly felt old before, being only a few years past thirty, but he certainly feels something when he stops by a park and watches teenagers and those a decade younger than him enjoying the late spring day. These images of youth are so different than the new recruits he became accustomed to leading. They were children in men's clothing. 

Music drifts on the breeze and groups sit under trees and chat excitedly. He's restless. He needs work or to do something productive and no one in this town seems to be doing anything. Erwin grows weary of his wandering and decides to return to the hotel and rest after the long train ride. He'll start looking for work tomorrow. Or look for anything that isn't this awful aimlessness. A man molded to have one hand on the trigger needs some sort of aim.

It happens while waiting at a bus stop, miles from where he started, when Erwin meets him. The boy with the golden hair and eyes like the sky. He's the only person Erwin saw that day who was doing something, as miniscule as it was.

“Can I help you, soldier?” The boy asks flatly, eyes barely lifting from the page he was intently devouring. Erwin subtly flicks his eyes downward at his own apparel. He supposed the olive tones did give him away, as does his short, neat haircut among the many long haired youths.

He doesn't pause to stare. He really doesn't. He is cool and collected and the boy smirks, seeing through these lies. Erwin clears his throat and asks,“I was wondering if this was the stop for the number 47 bus?”

“The 47? I honestly don't know. Don't care. This bench was just the only open one. Sorry.”

Erwin hums in understanding and turns away. He stands at attention, straight backed and legs stiff as he scans the road. The boy lifts his gaze and chuckles.

“Sit down, man. This _is_ the stop for the 47. I was messing with you.” Erwin turns and the boy pats the open spot beside him and laughs at the older man's calm hesitance. This boy is confusing. Erwin can't read him. He mockingly salutes and turns back to his book.“At ease, soldier.”

They sit in silence until the bus arrives. Erwin makes to get up and leave, but his legs don't seem to work. He glances over at his bench company and squints to see what he's reading. The words on the page are long and the print is small. The boy squints through his glasses and licks his lips now and then. Erwin is mesmerized. He wipes the sweat from his brow and makes the bold decision to remain seated.

Erwin makes no further motion to leave the bench and the bus pulls away with screeching tires. The boy closes his book and turns to Erwin, though not looking him in the eye, an air of meekness now about him.

“You missed your bus.”

“I think it was the wrong one.” Erwin doesn't know what to say to this boy with the calculating face. He should just walk away but he doesn't. He's curious.

“I think you have no idea what you're doing,” the boy slowly says.

“About what?”

The boy sighs and props an arm on the back of the bench, staring back at Erwin with his full attention for the first time since he made him sit down.“You don't have to try anymore, I get that you're trying to pick me up. I don't mind.”

Erwin balked at that, although he didn't let the shock show on his face. The boy winked before blushing and reverting to that shy demeanor from earlier. Was this kid serious? He smirked to himself and adjusted his glasses, flicking long bangs from his face.

“I'm not _picking you up_.”

“I'm messing with you again,” he laughed. Erwin didn't react. “My friends don't think I'm very funny either. I'm Armin.”

He sticks out a small hand and Erwin shakes it. He ignores the way Armin's fingers differ in feel against his war torn ones. He also ignores the lack of strength he was able to put into the handshake. It is the first one since returning to the states and he is weak. His arm pains him but he tries to ignore the sensation.

“My name is Erwin Smith.”

“Erwin? Armin. We nearly rhyme.”

“Not really.”

“You're no fun.”

The two lapse into a comfortable conversation. Armin inquires what Erwin is doing in the city. It is immediately obvious to the boy that he is an outsider. The ex-soldier explains, as detached as possible, how exactly he became an ex-soldier. Few details, fewer insights into internalized dilemmas. He can't help revealing a little more than he'd normally allow, though. This boy is cunning. He knows the right questions to ask. He knows how to get Erwin to say things freely.

They've since left the lonely bench and they walk around a nearby park as the streets become more crowded once the businessmen leave their nine to fives and take to the city streets.

“Where are you staying?” Armin eventually asks when Erwin tries to say his goodbyes for the night. Too close. Far too close they've drifted under the newly turned on street lamp. It was getting dark out.

Erwin provides the name of the hotel and Armin grimaces. He insists that Erwin change locations. The two find a bus station and ride back to the supposedly awful hotel to gather Erwin's one bag and relocate.

“Excuse me, sir. We're checking out,” Armin says to the man at the desk. The man jolts to attention and hides whatever he'd been doing under some clutter.

“He barely checked in! Whatever, turn in your key and good riddance. We don't need soldiers here anyway.”

Erwin opened his mouth to speak but Armin placed a soothing hand on his arm, halting whatever stupid comment Erwin was going to blurt out in sudden defense.

“Listen, I think you owe this fine citizen some money.” Armin leaned over the counter and glared at the hotel owner.

“I don't owe him shit.”

“I'll call rat. I'll call the police. I see the track marks, don't think I don't know what you're using this place as underneath detestable boarding conditions. I know who you are.” He started off meekly and grew bolder the more he argued, glancing back at Erwin occasionally.

“What the fuck are you on about? And what are _you_ gonna do? Scrawny little shit.”

“Armin, it's fine. The deposit wasn't that much.”

Erwin drags the boy from the lobby by the collar of his brown sweater and releases him once they've reached the sidewalk.

“I'm sorry. I had to! He's a scumbag who dealt some bad stuff to a friend and I had to give him a piece of my mind. I normally would never say something like that but, well, you're built like a tank so I thought I had some leverage.” Erwin rolled his eyes and headed off for the nearest bus stop. Armin jogged after to catch up with the man's long strides. “Where are you going now?”

“To find a new hotel since I'm currently out on the streets alone. Thank you, by the way.”

“Wait! You're not alone.” Armin grabbed his arm and halted his retreat. “I can help you. Let me make it up to you.”

“Do you know a hotel that is more reputable than that supposed drug dealer's? If your story was even truthful.”

“I do. I know a place that always has vacancy.”

\- - -

Erwin realizes that they're not headed to a hotel as soon as the bus turns down the beginnings of a more residential area away from downtown. They exit the bus and Armin stops in front of a slightly run down business next to an over grown lot with flimsy white lawn furniture strewn about.

“Where are we?”

“Don't get mad.”

“Armin,” he says in a stern voice. Armin just grabs his arm and guides him to the building in front of them. He unlocks the main door and they head inside.

The building has a strange lobby. It looks like it was a reception area at some point but it was currently filled with mismatched furniture and artwork strewn walls. A long hallway leads from the room and this is where Armin heads.

“My friend's dad used to use this place as a free clinic before he got the draft. Left for Canada and left Eren and I here with no place else to go. There's a ton of rooms we've converted. Rent is free but we do have some rules. No needles. No guns.” Erwin keeps a blank face but feels the weight of the pistol in his bag. “No cops. And no dealing. Take that to the park down the block if you must indulge. But you can do whatever else you need to here, it's a safe place. Off the local radar.”

Erwin is thoroughly confused in general but understands where this is headed. He sighs and finally pulls away from Armin's grip on his arm.

“I appreciate the offer, Armin, but I really should find-”

“Why? Why did you come here, Erwin? I mean, in general. You could have gone anywhere but you came to this city. A lot of people have been coming to this city lately and you're different from most of them,” he counters back before the other could make excuses. He is gentle but firm in questioning and Erwin finds that he can't resist that gaze. Armin sees right through him and he doesn't know what to do. San Francisco is nothing like he expected.

There's no one to lead and no goal to rush towards and he is lost, standing still. Armin grabs at his useless arm again and drags him onwards when he tires of waiting out the silence.

The two reach a room near the back, full of books and vinyls in messy piles and a desk with even more books piled on it. All of the furniture is worn and the walls are covered with newspapers and posters and all sorts of decoration. A smaller room is set off to the side where a few mattresses sit stacked behind the beaded doorway curtain.

“I hope you don't mind sharing?” Armin finally breathes out, hopeful, with bright eyes.

“This is your room?” Erwin very well knows it's Armin's room but he needs to keep talking. The silence needs to be filled.

“You bet. All our other rooms are occupied right now so this is the best I can offer unless you want a living room couch.”

Erwin relents and drops his bag to the ground and seats himself on Armin's couch. The silence persists again. Armin grabs a book and a lighter and joins Erwin. He lets the other man know that he's free to help himself to the books and food in the kitchen down the hall. Armin lights up a joint that he pulled from his pocket and inhales slow and deep, letting it all wash over him.

“Want a hit?” Armin asks with a slightly rougher voice than earlier.

The sweet yet earthy smoke drifts around Erwin and he scrunches his face. He doesn't consider himself a sheltered man by any means but he's honestly never considered the sort of offer he's being handed. He's watched men die and has killed a few himself. There have certainly been consequences in his life and he throws everything aside and accepts the offering. Armin smiles softly as Erwin take a long drag. It's much different than the cigars passed around during strategy meetings. He's not a kid like this golden haired youth, but he feels giddy. He hasn't felt that since he was a golden haired child himself.

He must have said as much out loud because Armin laughs that slow, captivating laugh and leans against Erwin's broad shoulder, tossing his book to the floor. Erwin doesn't wince at the contact, so close to the life halting wound, skin tingling more and more with each pass of the joint between the two.

“I'm not a child, though.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen, grandpa. Totally not a child.”

“You're a child.” Armin was only a year older than Erwin had been when he'd joined the military. Willingly. Unlike so many these days. It was so long ago. He'd been in the service for over a decade and a half and now those long years are behind him. He wondered when this young boy's name would be pulled or if he'd avoid it.

“Don't worry about that. Uncle Sam doesn't want me.” Shit. Erwin was saying far too many things out loud. His control was slipping He noticed the bitter tone in the boy's voice.

“Lucky you? Why?”

“They tried drafting me so I went. Fully prepared to sacrifice my life but they rejected me. Didn't want my flat feet and 'homosexuality'. Ugh. They list it like a disease on your card when they find out. Wouldn't have found out about that part either but my _friends_ decided to save me. _Right_.” Ah. There it was. Erwin couldn't ignore the way Armin's eyes lifted slowly, gauging his reaction to the reveal. Armin smirked when there was none and moved on from the subject, words slower and drawn out now with each pull of smoke into his lungs. “I'm not a coward. I'm not. Didn't want the big war hero to think I was some coward card burner.”

“I'm not a war hero.”

“Alright. I'll get your real story some day. I have my ways.”

“You're bluffing. What are you going to do?”

“I want to ask you the same question.”

Erwin doesn't remember placing his hand on the boy's shoulder but there they were. Armin had since moved closer and now his head was spinning and his eyes close against his will and he distantly hears Armin tell him that this isn't even his strongest stuff but he doesn't care because this boy has so much light emitting from his laughing face and now lips are on his and they fall. He's used to a life full of orders and strategy and composure. Then there was the unfortunate buzzing and ringing surround his head from a blast and screams that were most likely his own as they dug the bullet out and doped him up with morphine. This feels like that only they are surrounded by smoke and soft hands pass gently over the mostly healed wound.

Never fully healed. But for now it is good enough because pain is hiding somewhere else.

“Why are you wasting your time on me?” Erwin whispers when he draws back to steal a rush of breath. Armin is insistently pulling him back down from where they've fallen off the couch in a pile. His fingers dig into hard muscle and the older man groans as those soft lips press into his neck.

“Why not waste some time? The world's gonna end soon, right? People like you and me started it.”

Neither dwell on the significance and Erwin fists his shaking hands into silky strands and kisses back with all his bitterness and need. They melt against each other and forget the revolution and the war and the smoke around them and they simply feel. People talk about widening their minds and searching for something smaller yet bigger than all the problems people scream about in the streets or scream about over gunfire in the fields and steamy jungles doused with blood. He doesn't think it was possible to fill but he's found something to occupy that void inside him for just a little while. He allows himself to be trapped in small, insisting arms and be guided by the uncoordinated, biting teeth of a boy he didn't know existed until a few hours ago.

He's never been with a man before and he only ever fleetingly considered it on lonely, quiet days but Armin reassures him that everything is changing. Nothing matters anymore. Only today, only this night in the old pile of squeaky mattresses behind shining, clinking beads in an old clinic where America's runaways run away to hide. Armin passes something chalky but sweet from his lips to Erwin's waiting mouth and he lets it melt against his tongue as Armin strips away his clothing. They spiral down the rabbit hole until there is only light and feeling.

Minutes or hours or days pass and everything is hard to distinguish when the ceiling is spinning and the light fades in from every corner of the darkness. They are a sweaty mass tangled together and Erwin would kill for a fan or a breeze because it feels like his skin is sliding away. He's used to constricting heat but this is so much different than those far away jungle nights in flimsy tents. Here it builds and builds and he's buried under Armin's echoing laughter.

They ride the waves over and over and laugh and can't remember if a single word was spoken. But they've both probably said too much. Sometimes Erwin feels like the walls are closing in but they are falling down down down in reality. That nonexistent God he prayed to near the train station must have been listening and sent him an angel. Armin shrieks with laughter when Erwin says as much out loud. Armin trails his sinfully hot mouth everywhere at once and looks at Erwin from every angle with dark, glowing eyes and Erwin is sure that this boy is the devil instead.

They hover around each other and through each other for so, so long, scratching desperately at walls and reaching for the sky.

Another boy stands in the doorway and stares at the two men with their arms swatting at the ceiling, concerned but unmoving to help them. Help, please. They are going to _burn_.

Erwin must have announced some concern about the fire blocking the doorway and needing the police to put it out because this new boy raises his voice and shouts at them in concern. The words are smoke and they drift to Erwin's ears. He tries to cup them in his hands but Armin catches them first.

“Call the police? What do you mean, call the police? Armin, _who is this_? What's he talking about?”

“I found a stray. He's miiiiiine. We're going to the moon.” Armin's voice is a whisper and a scream and Erwin grabs at his pale, slick back in their cavernous oven.

“You've gotta calm down with this stuff. You're going to burn out.”

“But we're traveling the stars, Eren. The stars. We're running away.”

“Running away, where?”

Armin shrugs and flops back onto Erwin, who has since lost focus and buried his face in the pillows to hide from the fiery monster in the doorway.

“He got shot,” is all Armin says before wrapping himself around Erwin to bite at the man's neck and laugh that echoing laugh. They are left alone.

The crash is the worst and Erwin has trouble looking Armin in the eye as they sit at the small kitchen sometime much later once the trip has faded and left them spinning in an unpleasant recovery. Minutes or hours or days and Armin is watching him from over top of a newspaper. They dance around each other the whole morning, well, Armin flits around while Erwin barely moves from place to place. He's finally forced outside to explore the city, his new city he supposes, to find some clothing that isn't as claustrophobic and choking as the olives and tans of his duffel bag. He needs clothing that doesn't have his name stitched into the pockets. Armin made him hide the pistol when he saw it buried among the clothing.

He let the rule be broken as long as the secret stays hidden under the mattresses. If it is found by another in the house, he will bury the weapon in the side yard when no one is looking.

As they browse a give-away shop for clothing, Armin overhears some girls talking about a protest later in a park down by the bay. When they leave the store Armin turns excitedly to Erwin and unnerves the man with the expression on his face. It's both ravenously happy and calculating.

“Want to come with me? See one of my little side jobs?”

Erwin knows he has no choice in the matter but charades through the motions. He is genuinely intrigued about this boy's way of life but he refrains from letting his composure drop any more. As if there was any way of recovering it after the night previous as he sweated and moaned and cried against Armin. He remembers it all but he can't make it go away.

He's not used to losing control. Composure. This boy stole some of that resolve and refuses to let go.

It's all so distant but so far away and his head hurts when he tries to figure everything out as they ride a bus into the more collected and less colorful section of the city. Armin leads them to an office building and works his way up to the third floor like he belongs there.

Armin has a very specialized job with the newspaper and is not listed on any official payroll. What Armin does is act like an inside pair of eyes on the scene in the more lively sections of town. Like he said the night before, everything is changing. People take to the streets often now and everyone wants to be a part of the action. Armin gives the story, the details, borrows a camera, and accepts a handful of cash for his troubles. He hopes to see the reporters there and get and give more. The revolution is happening and he's a traitor to the cause.

“I thought you'd be out there with your friends chanting for peace?” Erwin asks as they leave the newspaper office and head down to the park location to scope out the scene.

“Didn't I teach you anything last night?” He laces fingers with the older man and drags him back to catch a bus. He settles against the other and sighs. “We're pretty similar, you know.”

“I'm not sure about that.” This is a lie. Erwin knows this is a lie and Armin knows this is a lie too.

“I think you understand me, though. We both know what has to be done.”

Armin observes everything wherever he goes. He uses knowledge for his benefit. He would have gladly gone to sacrifice himself if the recruitment center would have taken him, flat feet and other health slights non-withstanding. It's not about peace.

He is in the city by chance, not by choice like the people piling en masse these days. It's not about peace at all. Freedom is one thing, but peace is entirely out of the question.

A few people got arrested at the protest that day. No one was shot. Armin took amazing photographs and handed the camera and film back to the reporters discreetly. The people his age pose and flock to him, thinking he's a student like them wrapped up in the artistic statement of the revolution they all chant about. He couldn't care less. What is any of this changing? Proving?

He kicks at the charred remnants of draft cards on the pavement and frowns at Erwin, standing off to the side. They take a long walk to the police station and bail Eren out of jail as he was one of the unlucky ones to yell a little too loud, get a little too close to the authorities. Someone needed to be made an example of but they are willing enough to let him go from the group they managed to corral in. He's the only boy that someone showed up to claim, anyway.

Weeks slide by and more and more people pour into the city from every corner of the country as the weather grows hotter still. People pass in and out of the worn down old building Armin manages. He never expects money but people try to give what they can.

Erwin is always the oldest among them but he doesn't feel it anymore. He still wonders about his purpose in this town, but it doesn't seem so imminent when he strokes the young, soft face of that golden haired boy at night, surrounded by that thickly sweet smoke and the occasional spiral of color and sound as they free their minds. More pictures are taken over the course of the summer and Erwin is eventually given a camera as well. He learns what to listen for, what to look for, and he joins Armin in their traitorous observance of the revolution.

The summer of love dies for everyone eventually but it dies for Armin hard and swift when Eren's birthday gets pulled in the draft lottery. He is in perfect military health and on personal virtue, doesn't follow in his father's footsteps and run off to hide in Canada. He is shipped off to the jungles. His empty room serves as a cruel reality, but Armin does nothing outwardly different. Inside, he is in turmoil.

Do you see? Nothing changed. No one was saved. He wants to scream it from his roof to the lingering flower children who wander the streets. They said they wanted revolution but no one changed the world. He bought a television because he couldn't look away. The terror flickers into the room from news coverage every evening now and he fears seeing his friend strewn about in those fields. His previously cold thoughts of sacrifice and duty burn through him when his letters return unread. Armin screams into his pillow at night as Erwin rubs a hand down the boy's back. A stronger hand than he had when he arrived in the city.

Time heals some wounds. Physical, at least. The smoke and pills full of color and sound may have helped too. They both escape more and more often and try to forget the unpleasant things. Together they hide behind the walls of that small room with the beaded curtains and live among the stars.

You can stare at the night sky every night for a year and it barely changes. Much like the reality of the city.

They both photograph what they can and live off the small amounts of money they are given from odd jobs and sheer dumb luck, trudging together through the city day after day. Armin thinks about going to school once he saves up enough money and Erwin thinks about finding a real job. They think about a lot during the quiet afternoons. They are the only ones left in the building.

On a breezy day they walk together across that long bay bridge as cars whiz by, ruffling their golden hair. Armin hums a song that was stuck in his head, played the night before to muffle the silence of their room.

Erwin leans over the bridge railing and looks down at the water. In one hand, he gently clasps Armin's smaller one and smiles sadly to himself. In the other, he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out that old pistol that had been hidden between squeaky mattresses for so long. Armin glances at the object with momentary worry.

Erwin drops it into the bay looming peacefully calm below and together, they walk back home.

 

“...A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i made a mix of some important 1960s songs that blend into the story, [found on 8tracks](http://8tracks.com/theghostbusters/summer-of-love). lots of small references to these songs throughout. lyrics and title are from 'turn! turn! turn!' by the byrds
> 
> this is basically a silly stream of words i typed out and i hope it doesn't sound too all over the place. if it does, that's ok. it's about drugs, anyway. i was daydreaming at work the other day and thought of snk characters and the 60s era and i'm fascinated by that time and how it's romanticized but nothing really changed during the summer of love other than tons of drug use and some really great music and everyone being both upset and blissed out all the time. idk they're both prob super out of character but i don't care, this pairing needs more fics anyway so hey 
> 
>  
> 
> [main tumblr](http://theghostbusters.tumblr.com/) & [snk only](http://aarlertarmin.tumblr.com/).


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